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keeping us tied and true
by leiascully
"my baby's looking so damn pretty with those anxious eyes, rain-speckled hair. and my ring to wear. ten years waiting for this moment of fate, when we say the words and sign our names. if they take it away again someday, this beautiful thing won't change. oh me and my baby driving down"
It rained on the day of House and Cuddy's wedding. "Of course it would," Wilson said, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot in his tux. "The two of you taking vows? That's got to be an affront to every god there is. Did you remember the veil?"
"I did that earlier so she could go and fix her makeup. And God's got nothing to do with it," said House, "this is all about the tax breaks." But when Cuddy appeared in a damp white suit with raindrops in her hair and that vexed wrinkle between her eyes under the veil as if she were demanding how it would dare rain on today of all days, House's expression softened so that Wilson could see the shadow of a dimple nestled in the stubble. Wilson's lips pursed in a low involuntary whistle. Cuddy's suit was simple, white linen over a pink silk top. Her hair was loose over her shoulders and her face was glowing despite her anxious eyes. If she made Wilson's heart ache, he couldn't imagine what she was doing to House.
"Nervous?" murmured Wilson.
House turned scornful blue eyes on him. "Scared of her? Scared of a few words? People like you put too much pressure on marrige. A justice of the peace and a ring aren't going to save me from myself."
Wilson rolled his eyes. "Good thing she already did."
"Yeah," said House quietly, watching her. He touched two fingertips to the inside of his left forearm and then took them away. It had been three years since the cancer scare, the meltdown, the second overdose. The track marks from the morphine had faded, but he still knew where they were. It had been Cuddy who had found him in the apartment and dragged him to the hospital. Wilson had been in the middle of a very messy and rancorous fourth marriage, trying to save himself from a fourth divorce with a tropical vacation; like Pontius Pilate, he had washed his hands of the matter, though House suspected Wilson had seen the warning signs. It had been Cuddy who had wrestled House through detox, through rehab, through the experimental liver dialysis and regeneration, through his struggles to find a pain doctor who could make life bearable. House looked at her now in the radiance of her joy and remembered the fire in her eyes as she heaved him off the floor.
"Leave me," he had gritted out through the haze of the drug. "Get the fuck out of my house, Cuddy."
"You are not allowed to do this," she had spat back, and he remembered being startled by how strong she was, her capable little hands like iron around his arm and the sound of her voice that cut through the morphine fog.
"Free will says I can end my life if I want," he had argued, but she had already called the ambulance and he was in the hospital shot full of ketamine before he could formulate a better response.
That was love, he thought now, sheltered from the drizzle by the chuppah. The long fight, the fire in her eyes, the halo of her hair, the constance of her presence. During the rehab, she had moved his things into her house. "You need watching," she had told him. "Your doctors won't release you unless they know you're in good hands. Yours are still too shaky."
"Why are you doing this?" he had asked, his right hand gripping his thigh.
"Because some things matter," she had said cryptically. "Do you want to get out of here or not?"
"This is blackmail," he had grumbled.
"You have to learn to talk to someone."
"Are you jockeying to be my higher power?" he had snarked. "Is that how deep your administrative itch goes? I should surrender my will to yours?"
"If that's what it takes," she had said, and touched his face, and left.
The next weekend he had moved in with her.
It had been months of treatments and doctors and House had gotten used to waking up near her, fitting himself into her morning routine, being part of her day, learning how far he could push her before she closed off. She wasn't tender or yielding; she pushed him into physical therapy and alternative pain regimens. There were bad days when he swore at her and she lifted her chin in silence, bad days when she came home tired and he goaded her until she swore at him. But she was there.
"You don't goddamn understand!" he had said, after she hunted him down when he stomped out of the fourth pain doctor's office.
"Then explain it to me!" she had snapped. "Make me understand, House, bless me with your magnificent and intimate wisdom about pain! Use as many ridiculous metaphors as you need. I'll be waiting."
"It's like living in a war zone," he had said after about fifteen minutes of staring at her shoes, chin braced on his cane. "Even on the good days, the fear is still there. There's no safe place."
She had sat down next to him. "You can't negotiate peace all by yourself."
He was exhausted for a year and she was always there to hold him up or to leave him alone as the situation required. There were times he would have sworn she had his room bugged, nights he paced and swore and she came in wrapped in a robe and sat him down, rubbing his thigh with her strong hands until the ache eased and he could take a painkiller and sleep.
"I don't understand why you're doing this," he had said once, his eyes narrowed with pain, her fingers warm on his thigh under the rucked up edge of his pajama bottoms.
"Maybe you never will," she had said, her head bent over his knee.
"Stop trying to save me."
"Stop trying not to be saved."
"Don't you have better things to do with your life?"
She had paused. "I brought you back. After this, I get credit for all the lives you save. Does it make you more comfortable if I justify it with selfishness?"
"You're not like that. You've got more devious reasons."
"You may be a genius, House, but there are times you are extraordinarily dense." She had rolled her fists down his thigh, pressing her knuckles into the damaged muscle, and he had clenched his teeth. "If I believe you make the world a better place, then it's not much of a sacrifice. And you're my patient. I have a responsibility to you."
"Saint Cuddy the Enigmatic."
"If that's what you want to think." She had pressed his knee between her palms. "Take a pill and go to sleep. We'll see how you feel in the morning."
"I'm not the type to grovel at your feet with gratitude," he had snapped, and she had turned in the doorway, circles under her eyes and the first threads of silver in her hair.
"I just want to see you live again," she had said, weary, and disappeared into her room.
Even when she was out of the house playing tennis or visiting her family, there were reminders of her in every room. Wilson came around when he could, but he was distracted, fighting for his marriage, less out of place than House among Cuddy's furniture, but out of the loop somehow. House eased back into Diagnostics, fighting the yearn for Vicodin, learning to live around the pain, trying not to destroy everything this time. In the evenings he would play the piano or they'd share cups of tea, and somehow House would find a story to tell, and she would listen, and then she would give him some fragment of her past. It was like being with Wilson in the old days, except that Cuddy was touchier, her shoulder against his as they watched a movie on the weekends, and House found that he grew to like the fact that someone hadn't given up on him, would still reach out. He sat closer to her on the couch, shouldered into her bathroom in the morning to brush his teeth, stood at the sink with her rinsing dishes for the dishwasher.
"Remember Michigan?" she had said, curled into a corner of the couch one November evening. He was always startled by how small she really was, given the force of her personality. "You ran into me because I was on your route and knocked me onto an ice sheet."
"You must have slid ten yards," he said, pushing his left foot under her calves for the warmth, his right foot propped on the coffee table. "You've improved your stance since then. Not so easy to push around these days. Adminstrative hellbitch."
"You were the worst TA I ever had."
"You were just fun to mess with."
"No more excuses, House," she had said, with her head tipped to the side and a light in her blue eyes, and he had unfolded himself with what seemed like unbearable slowness and kissed her. In the space of time it had taken for her to kiss him back, he had realized that grudging affection had turned into something else, freely given, abundant, something he hadn't acknowledged in so long he could barely recognize it. Love. His fingers had tangled in her hair. Her palms had flattened against his face, but she hadn't been pushing him away.
"Marry me," he had said.
"Why?" she had said, with a flush on her cheeks and a dreamy look in her eyes.
"Because some things matter," he had said, reaching out for an answer and only coming up with her words. "Sometimes you have to mark the occasion. And I love you."
"Okay," she had said.
"Next weekend?"
"You're in a hurry."
"Patience is not my virtue," he had said, and that had made her laugh. Her fingertips had explored the planes of his face and he had kissed the pads of her fingers when they came in range.
"June," she had said decisively. "If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right."
"How are you two of you ever going to get married?" Wilson had said in disbelief when they told him. "I mean, mazel tov, but have you ever even been near a synagogue? Or a church, for that matter? How the hell is this going to work?"
"Are you casting aspersions on our relationship?" House had said, smirking, slipping his arm around Cuddy's shoulders and trying to subtly brush his fingers over the tops of her breasts.
"No," Wilson had said, knuckles pressed to his forehead. "I don't understand it, but Cuddy knows what she's doing. I'm just talking logistics. Are you going to run off to Vegas? Are you going to convert to Judaism? There are a lot of questions here." He had spread his hands in the air. "You know what? You, Lisa, you know what you're doing. After running this hospital and keeping him mostly in line, I'm sure you could organize anything." He had kissed her cheek. "And really, House. Mazel tov. Don't break her heart."
"Everyone's so worried about her," House had groused. "No one's worried about my heart."
"Even if it's grown three sizes, it's still made of pretty stern stuff." Wilson had sighed, looking at them with a touch of envy itching under his ribs. "Well. This will be exciting."
It had been a long winter and a longer spring, although the anticipation was alleviated by the kisses shared in the kitchen and the warmth of the bed they shared at night, exploring each other's scars, making new and better memories. He had called Stacy two weeks before the wedding.
"You're getting married? To Lisa? I'm sorry, am I talking to Gregory House or James Wilson?"
"You're invited," he had said.
"Gee, that sounds like a great party," she had quipped, her accent fraying around the edges. "Should I bring the Kool-Aid or the cyanide tablets?"
"Thanks for saving my life," he had said. "Come to my wedding. Cuddy wants to see you."
"Does it ever worry you that you call your fiance by her last name?" Stacy had asked, and he could hear the old pain in her voice, the funny stress on the words. "I'll be there."
And that brought them under the makeshift chuppah, which wasn't a tallit, but a rented party tent with a tarp slung over it. It was a compromise of a wedding, appropriate to their relationship, House thought as he lifted the veil from Cuddy's hair. It was a Tuesday afternoon, which Cuddy swore up and down House had done just to complicate things, but she said it with a smile as he swore up and down it was the only hole in her calendar. The justice of the peace held no holy book. It was in the open air because House didn't want to stand in a synagogue or in the stuffy room in the city hall. There was a chair in case the groom needed to sit. There was nothing about obedience in the vows, only honor.
"I do," she said, staring up at him with those wide blue eyes full of trust.
"I do," he said, gazing down at her, and he could feel the softening of the old lines around his mouth.
"Ani l'dodi v'dodi Li," she said, and held a glass of wine to his mouth. He sipped the rich red liquid, sweet and rough and full of history in his mouth like the taste of love.
"Thanks for making me a human being again," he said, and brought the glass to her lips. She sipped, swallowed, and he passed the glass to Wilson. Wilson handed him back an empty champagne flute wrapped in a white cloth, and House leaned down and put it awkwardly on the ground, then stomped on it with right foot and cane. There was the sound of breaking glass and the guests applauded. House slipped a ring onto Cuddy's hand and let her put one on his hand.
"Now aren't you glad I use the cane on the wrong side?" he murmured. "Otherwise think of the ring blisters I'd get. I might have had to not wear it, and then think of how the women would flock around me."
"You would have adapted," she whispered back. "Kiss me."
There was a party at the house afterwards for the families and the few guests. House spent most of it at the piano playing whatever took his fancy as Cuddy circulated. Blythe House bonded with Elaine Cuddy as they both sniffled. John House talked to Mark Warner. The bride and groom swayed through one dance in the middle of the living room as jazz spilled quietly from the speakers and Stacy chatted with Wilson over a plate of sushi and nibbles.
"Hard to believe, isn't it?" she said, watching House with his cheek pressed against Cuddy's hair.
"Impossible," agreed Wilson, putting a cheese puff in his mouth. "But right, somehow."
Stacy sighed and drained a flute of champagne.
"Friends, family, et cetera," House announced at ten. "It's been charming, but it's time for you to leave. We do thank you for coming. I'm well aware most of you thought this day would never come. You were all wrong. But thanks for playing. Leave any gifts and lost bets in the foyer. No doubt Cuddy will send you a thank you note."
"Sweetheart, I'm so proud of you," Blythe House said, hugging her son, who leaned into the embrace.
"Don't get too excited, Mom. You're probably not going to get any grandchildren."
"Seeing you happy is good enough," she said, and stretched to kiss his forehead. John House kissed Cuddy's cheek and shook House's hand with a gruff "Don't screw this up, son. You've done well." Elaine and Jim Cuddy both hugged each of them, bustling out of the door still offering good wishes, and House got a kiss on the cheek from each of Cuddy's two sisters and their assorted children and handshakes from the husbands.
"I thought they'd never actually leave," House grumbled as he closed the door on the parents. "Can we go to bed now? I hear wedding night sex is fantastic." He pulled Cuddy to him and put his nose against her neck. "You smell good."
"I went to the mikvah," she said, running her hands over his back. "And I have a lot of makeup to take off."
"Hurry up," he said. "I'll go warm up the bed."
"It's June," she said, "everything's warm."
"It's raining," he said. "You know I'm bad at romance."
"Good thing I like you anyway."
"Good thing," he agreed, and squeezed her ass. "Hurry up."
"It's not like I made you wait for it," she said from the bathroom door as he hobbled down the hallway.
"I'm waiting for it now!" he called, sitting on the edge of the bed and unbuttoning his shirt. He was down to boxers, fishing in the bedside table for painkillers, by the time Cuddy came in in something sheer he hadn't seen before.
"Happy wedding day," she said, and he picked up a glass of water and swallowed a tablet.
"Come here," he said, and she went to him and put her hands on his shoulders as his fingers slid up her thighs.
"You look good in a tux," she murmured, brushing her lips over his ear so that a chill went up his back in the warmth of the room. "But you look good out of it, too."
"You looked pretty good today too," he said. "But I like you better in skin." He slid the silky fabric up her curves and over her head as slowly as he could bear, watching her pupils dilate in the low light of the room, touching a stretch mark here and a freckle there, kissing the gentle swell of her belly, rubbing his stubble over her hip just until her skin flushed gently. She made him ache. He felt old with her, and young, confused and frightened and comfortable all at once. "Thanks for making me a honest man," he said into her navel.
"I expect to be well re-paid," she said, running her fingers through his hair where it was thinning on top.
"You'll have to come a little closer, then," he said, pulling her into the bed. "You'd think we'd be tired of sex by this point."
"We're newlyweds," she pointed out, and pressed her body against him. "And we're not dead."
"Thanks for that too," he said, and kissed her. Her mouth opened, her tongue sliding against his. He kneaded her ass, pulling her hips against his until she moaned and rubbed against his erection. He slid down her body, kissing her neck, lavishing attention on her breasts, which were still firm and full, the skin pale and the nipples rosy. He kissed the undersides of her breasts and dragged his fingers over them before pulling a nipple into his mouth. Her back arched and she gasped as he let the edges of his teeth scrape over her skin.
"God," she said, low and breathy.
"No, just me," he said, and trailed kisses down her stomach. Her skin was sweet; she had always smelled good to him, perfume or not, and he loved her with desire salting her curves and the softness that aging had given them. She was growing older with considerably more grace than he had managed, but she made him feel that the damage he'd done wasn't beyond repair. He kissed the inside of her thigh, letting his fingers wander through the curls between her thighs, his lips following them. She whimpered as his tongue flickered out over her clit, and he kissed her damp smooth skin and rearranged himself on the bed to ease the tension in his leg.
"All right?" she asked, desire weighting down her voice.
"Just fine," he said, and traced a path from clit to entrance with his fingertips before sliding two fingers inside her. She was vocal and he loved it, loved playing her to see what new tones she'd produce. Now he rubbed at the spot that got her keening, a high helpless sound that he enjoyed, nothing anyone else would ever hear from her. His erection was like a fire between his legs, hampered by the boxers he still wore, heat spreading through his whole body, and every sound she made caused him to twitch. But he was dedicated, his lips and tongue sampling the tang of her as his fingers thrust, waiting for the throaty moan and the sudden flutter of her muscles. He traced spirals on the inside of her thigh with her own moisture on his fingertips, his face pressed into her stomach, waiting for her to ease down from her orgasm.
"God," she said again, "House, oh." He slid slowly up her limp body, setting his teeth in the curve of her waist just for fun, holding her close against him as her hands fumbled with his boxers.
"I need you," she said.
"Good," he said, "I need you too." He pulled her leg over his hip, her hands guiding him in, and though he wasn't much for sentiment, she was home. He thrust and she pushed back against him, giving him leverage, working with him, working against him, a perfect balance, and she was what he needed. He thrust harder, not afraid of hurting her, knowing she'd tell him if something was wrong, and she was lithe and alive around him and against him. He was panting and she was moaning again, that light rough sound that drove him crazy.
"Coming with me?" he gasped out, pushing his thumb down over her clit and rubbing gentle circles. The heat was almost unbearable. He was rushing towards a high better than morphine, the tingle spreading through his body and up his thighs.
"Always," she said, looking into his eyes with her eyes so dark from desire that they were almost a blue he didn't recognize. The flush was high on her cheeks and on her chest and he loved having her in her arms, and then her eyelids were fluttering, struggling not to close, and her muscles were clutching around him, and he surrendered to the tingle that had overwhelmed him, his balls tightening, the heat rushing out of him into her, but she was giving it back with the hot blossom of her mouth against his.
"Fuck," he said, sagging against her.
"Yes," she agreed, relaxing in the curve of his arm. "Mmmmm."
"Maybe later we can go and try out the hot tub."
"We don't have a hot tub," she said, rousing and slinging her legs over the side of the bed to pad to the bathroom.
"That's what you think," he said. "Had to pay them double to install it when it looked like rain today. Never let it be said that I am not a genius."
"You're something," she said over the sound of water running.
"And you know what that is?" he asked, propping himself up on one elbow as she came back to bed and slipped under the covers next to him.
"Enlighten me," she said.
"Ani l'dodi v'dodi Li," he said, the words unfamiliar in his mouth.
"Exactly," she said, and kissed him.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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